I am in no way a hippie, but I do believe the choices you make have bast consequences. When you shop at wall mart, you are paying that low price because the workers are underpaid and that is the bottom line. They don't get health insurance or anything like that either. Wal mart costs the state of california millions of dollars each year because their employees are on medical. Medical is for the poorest people who can't afford insurance, not for people with jobs! They "actively dicourage" employees from forming unions and get rid of any that do form. Why would a company prevent their own employees from forming a union? They do nothing but reinforce a culture of poverty, and study after study has shown that for walmart to be sucessful in a community, that community must get poorer or the wal mart fails! I wonder why that is?
All of that aside, WallMart does give you a damn good value. But wouldn't you like to know your dollar isn't being spent to reinforce poverty? Although you will probably call me a damned commie hippie liberal douchebag, or whatever other things they call people like me, being informed and socially responsible should play a part in everyone's life. Just because you can't directly see the people affected by something, doesn't mean they aren't affected.